Amazon scores big win broadcasting NFL Black Friday football; they captured Christmas shoppers

They ARE Santa Claus

“Will Santa come down the chimney again this year, Mommy?”

“No dear, all that stuff is done. It’s old. Santa is now on the other end of our Amazon account.”

—This piece is based on, and takes off from, Mike Gunzelman’s excellent article over at Outkick.

For the first time in history, the NFL scheduled a game on Black Friday this year.

Dolphins-Jets. Jets lost, of course. Badly.

Amazon stepped in and paid the NFL $100 million just to broadcast this one game this one time.

Exclusive rights.

Meaning: Fans watching the game were Amazon Prime members.

Meaning: Those millions of fans stayed home on Black Friday. They didn’t go Christmas shopping at stores with crazed people.

But wait. They still did that shopping. By ordering crap through Amazon. During the game.

Not only that, but Amazon had their previous online shopping profiles. So Amazon ran in-game commercials customized to those profiles.

Some guy in Cincinnati bought shoes three times on Amazon? He saw shoe ads during Back Friday football.

Some woman in Louisville bought a massage chair on Amazon? She saw ads for automatic foot wigglers.

That kind of thing.

Santa’s got no sleigh. He’s got warehouses.

As I always do, I look to future possibilities.

A President holds a press conference and announces:

“I’ve just signed a deal with Amazon. The nonsense I feed you reporters? That’s all surface stuff. But now, I’ll be bringing Prime members behind closed doors to watch what really goes on.”

“The meetings, the arguments, the drug-fueled temper tantrums, the bribes, payoffs, deals with lobbyists for major polluters, the framing of bullshit issues designed to attract voters, the faces of people you’ve never seen before who really run my administration. You can’t get this stuff anywhere else. No other news outlet will have it. This is just for Prime members.”